Category: Birth

I am finally, after 7 months, able to tell my twin birth story, which involved a full placenta abruption with twins. It’s taken 7 months for me to be able to speak about this without me saying it as if I’m a 3rd person, totally removed.

The birth of my twins

On the 15/2/2019 my DCDA twin boys were born 1.26 & 1.27 pm on a Friday. I was one week from my scheduled C sec, but I wouldn’t make it.

At 10.35am,
after feeling somewhat off and not taking my kids to school (at the time a
mother of 3), I reached over to grab my then 1 year olds toy to feel bleeding. I reached down, my hand was bright red! I
knew I had to get to the hospital straight away. I got my 7&1 year olds into the car and
drove myself 20 mins to the local hospital.
My mum’s house is one minute from the hospital. I
drove up her driveway screaming beeping my Astra sedan horn furiously. “Get in now I’m bleeding” I screamed at
her. She got into the driver’s seat and as
I tried to move to the passenger seat the blood started leaving me at an
alarming rate. She drove to the hospital
where I got out alone. l walked the 67 steps, it took to get through the
door to the women’s assessment unit. By
this time, a trail of blood was flowing from me and pooling to the ground at my
feet.

I fell pregnant with my multiples just before Xmas 2013, we were both so excited to be adding to our little family, at the time we had a nearly 2 yr old, Luna. My husband Andrew has worked FIFO or DIDO for nearly as long as we have known each other, first as a driller all over QLD and the NT then with Rio Tinto in QLD. At the time I fell pregnant with our twins we lived in a tiny mining town 3 hrs from the nearest big hospitals Mackay.

My first inkling that this pregnancy was any different from my first began very early in the first few weeks; the all day sickness was relentless. Eventually on Xmas Eve, after 3 days of keeping nothing down, I ended up in hospital. It was early days and after the usual treatment I refused to stay not wanting to miss Xmas morning with my toddler at home. Andrew had just finished his dayshift swing and managed to make it to town to take me home from hospital. And so began the juggle of managing a twin pregnancy plus toddler at home with a partner working a rotating roster 3 hours from home.

Bringing home twins when you have a toddler waiting to welcome them to the family can be a juggling act. Here are some tips to make the whole process a bit smoother.

Bringing Home Triplets or Twins When You Have a Toddler

Try as we might to not disrupt an older child’s life when several siblings come home from the hospital, it is likely to happen anyway. Bringing home triplets or twins when you have a toddler waiting to welcome them to the family can be a juggling act.

Finding out we were pregnant
with twins

We found out we were having twins at our first ultrasound at 12 weeks.
It was my second pregnancy and I did the math and realised the twins would most
likely be born before my daughters second birthday. Despite the typical
pregnancy complaints (and the initial shock of finding out there were two),
things were going pretty smoothly, and I waddled my way through the first two
trimesters without any drama.

28 weeks pregnant with
twins

At 28 weeks I tested positive for gestational diabetes but it was kept under control through diet. My dream birth scenario was to make it to at least 37 weeks and go into labour naturally and deliver them vaginally. The universe had other plans.

As soon as I found out I was pregnant with fraternal twins, my dreams of a natural calm birth felt like it was slowly slipping away.

The only stories I had
heard of were c-sections, or an attempted vaginal birth then emergency c-section,
and very premature babies to top it off. I was petrified and spent the first
few weeks considering just booking in for a c-section rather than attempting
vaginal at all.

Thankfully my midwife was so supportive of my wishes for a natural delivery, as was the obstetrician that oversaw my pregnancy (if twin A was head down). The hospital strongly recommended an epidural and considering up the pro’s and con’s to this was on my mind for months. I was also concerned as I was a public patient I would get whichever obstetrician who was there on the day and they might try to change my birth wishes.

Back in September last year I was blessed to welcome 2 healthy
babies into our family, making them kids number 3 and 4 for hubby and I. Plus 4
under 4

I always knew the twins would come via c-section as both of my previous pregnancies were also c-sections due to them being breech and not turning. I am also lucky that with all 3 pregnancies I have never experienced labour (bonus!!).

Let me just start this by saying I don’t know if I have ever been 100% certain on having babies. My husband and I thought that we would leave things to chance and see what happened, if we didn’t conceive then that was it. Well, little did we know that we would conceive within the first month of leaving things to “chance”!

I guess all the usual things happened in those first few weeks. I took a pregnancy test at home first one was negative, did a second 3 days later which was positive. Went to the GP, had the “I’m pregnant” conversation and was sent for blood tests and an early scan to confirm the pregnancy. I had a conversation with a friend about 3 days before my scan and had a joke saying that I bet that I am carrying twins, we laughed and wrote it off as joke. Well we all know what happened next, we went and had our scan and there were two heartbeats with perfectly defined embryonic structures!

We are a blended family. I have had three boys and my partner has had three girls from previous relationships, they range in age from 21 down to 6.

In February 2017 I went on a holiday to Queensland with my boys, I spent a lot of time feeling unwell, I felt as though I had pulled lower abdominal muscles and thought wow it’s been a long time since I went swimming, I felt nauseous because of the heat.

When we returned I still didn’t feel the best, I had at the end of 2016 had a mirena IUD removed and began taking the contraceptive pill, I was convinced it didn’t agree with me, after another month of feeling off I returned to the GP, I had what I thought was a mass in my stomach, fearing the worst I told my GP the pill doesn’t agree with me and I’m not sure that I don’t have something in my stomach. She did a couple of investigations and instead of the news I expected (a return of cancer from years ago) she told me I was pregnant. Not just with one but two babies and not just pregnant either, near on 14 weeks.

Finding out I was pregnant with twins

I found out I was pregnant quite early (day before my period was due actually). Had some bleeding at 5 weeks. When I had an ultrasound, they weren’t able to tell us anything at that point. I had to have another scan at 7 weeks. From 7 weeks I had the most awful morning sickness or more like whenever I ate food sickness or moved or did anything really. Everything was going great.

At 12 weeks, had my next scan, we were chatting away with the guy doing my ultrasound and then his face changed, he’s like hold on a minute. I looked at my husband thinking the worst. He then turned to us and said “Its TWINS”. I laughed, saying you are joking right?? He was like “No, its twins turning his screen to us and pointing them out to us” My husband sat there in shock…I continued to laugh. We found out we were having MCDA twins. Identical twins. Wow. He also explained that could also be why my morning sickness was really bad.

Finding out I was pregnant with twins

I found out I was having MCDA twins at my first scan at 8 weeks. The first half of my pregnancy was uneventful. All my fortnightly scans went fine and I found out I was having boys at my 16 week scan. I had my usual scan at 27 weeks 3 days and everything was fine. both boys were still head down as they had been since 13 weeks.

That night I woke up with pains but put it down to the usual stretching pains in my stomach. I had a shower and went back to sleep, that went on for the rest of the night. The next afternoon after spending the whole day in pain I presented to the hospital. Here I found out I was having contractions and I was 2cm dilated. I was moved to the birth suite where I had my first round of steroids. I was hooked up to a magnesium drip for 24 hours, and after the 24 hours I got my second round of steroids and was moved up to the wards.